ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

[Phantom]

I saw this in '59 and was really impressed by the idea of someone walking through solid objects.

Robert Lansing, one of my favorite "cold" actors holds the movie together. He is a major presence and a genuinely tragic figure, alternating between a determination for self-preservation and his tortured grief over the deaths he has caused.

Lansing was scheduled to appear at a showing of the movie in NYC in the eighties but was a no show. I wanted to tell him how much I appreciated his performance in the tv produced Life on the Mississippi, but I never got the chance.

The Patty Duke segment was particularly memorable, especially because her demise was off screen and all the more disturbing. Duke was already in rehearsals for the Broadway opening of The Miracle Worker, a mere two weeks after the opening of The 4D Man.

The jazz score, perhaps the most despised in sci-fi history, doesn't annoy me as much as it does everyone else. If it was an attempt to appeal to a younger, more hip generation, it failed miserably.

I'm not big on remakes, but this is one movie that could use another go around, especially after the evolutionary progress of fx in the digital age.

There is (if it hasn't been removed) a decent copy on YouTube, better than the awful vhs and dvd edition that was available for years.

_________ 4D Man (1959) High Quality Full Movie


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What Is Essential Is Invisible

[Pow]

DYK from IMDB.

The movie was titled as "The Evil Force" in the UK; and was reissued "Master of Terror" in the US.
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Note: Neither title is an improvement over 4D Man.
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Scott and Tony work at the Fairview Research Center which is also the name of the production company that made the movie.

Steve McQueen who had starred in the producers previous film The Blob was supposed to star in the 4D Man. However, Steve proved to be so difficult on The Blob that they decided to recast the lead role with Robert Lansing.
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Note: Yep, Steve did have that difficult reputation throughout his career. I would guess that some, or all of it, stemmed from the hellacious childhood and teenage years he experienced. Not for the faint of heart.

Note: Kitty Pryde, one of the X-Men in the Marvel Comics possesses the power to "phase" through objects. As a bonus, whenever she phases through mechanical objects of any kind the object will develop glitches and become inoperable.

Note: In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Next Phase," a transporter accident while beaming back from a disabled Romulan ship turns La Forge and Ro invisible and allows them to pass through normal matter.

Note: Watching the brand new sitcom Ghosts (which is terrific) they have scenes where the deceased spirits walk through walls, closed doors, and so forth

The visual effect is beautifully executed and shows how far we've come with that optical since the 4D Man.

[Pow]

IMDB mentions that a very young Patty Duke, then 12, has a small but crucial part as Lee Meriwether's little sister.

I believe that trivia is incorrect. Patty certainly is in the film, but she isn't Lee's kid sister.

[Bud Brewster]

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You're right, Mike. The IMDB cast list has the name of Patty's character as Marjorie Sutherland. Lee Meriwether plays Linda Davis.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[tmlindsey]

I just watched this for the first time a few nights ago and UGH.

It is an interesting concept (that takes too long to get moving) and, yes, that soundtrack is jarring, inappropriate and awful!

Gotta give them props for implying that little Patty Duke is killed off, though. Pretty daring for the time, I'd think.
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"Have you never wondered what it would be like to walk between the ticks and tocks of Time?"

[Bud Brewster]

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Brother, we sure agree on the way this movie botched the way it was made. It's really sad . . .
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)